Oral Arguments Echo in Gatherings Across Nation

As members of the clergy led the way, thousands joined a Washington march on Tuesday in opposition to same-sex marriage.Credit
Nicholas Kamm/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Most United States Supreme Court cases, however significant, pass largely unnoticed when they are argued. But the opening of hearings over the legal definition of marriage was a cultural moment that brought America to its front porch.

From small prayer vigils in San Diego to rallies in Boston, from Passover Seders to spiritual fasts, the weight of the decision that the nine justices will make was felt in thousands of communities far from Washington.

Here in a state where sodomy was a felony until 2003 and where 78 percent of voters approved a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage three years later, about 300 people gathered under a Confederate flag that flies at the State Capitol.

Like some others in rallies across the country, they were united in a belief that the cases could lead to profound, positive changes in the way gay men and lesbians are treated under the law.

“I didn’t think I’d live to see this,” she said. “But even if they legalize it doesn’t mean people will accept it.”

At the same time, others gathered to pray and march in defense of an institution that they believe should be shared only between a man and a woman.

“The views on marriage are not changing,” said Dran Reese, the president of the Salt and Light Council, a Christian group north of San Diego that opposes same-sex marriage. She was at a rally at the San Diego courthouse, praying that the Supreme Court would uphold what has been the traditional definition of marriage.

“The other side, they have a little more time and a lot more money,” she said. “That’s an unfortunate position for us as people of faith.”

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Supporters of same-sex marriage in South Carolina, where it is banned, gathered Tuesday at the State Capitol in Columbia.Credit
John W. Adkisson for The New York Times

The sheer number of people who stepped forward this week to express their opinions spoke to the personal significance of the issue in a nation that has not been so publicly divided on a social matter since the court ruled on abortion 40 years ago or, perhaps, since the battle over racial civil rights before that.

“Folks are coming out either in support or opposition because this is one of the great civil rights issues of our time,” said the Rev. Angela Yarber, pastor at Wake Forest Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, N.C.

On Monday night, she led a prayer service for a group of about 200 people who hope the Supreme Court rules in favor of same-sex marriage.

The same night, blessings were given in support of same-sex marriage at a Passover Seder in Hamden, Conn. At a Chinese Baptist Church in Houston, a special call was issued, urging the court to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, which limit marriage to a union between a man and a woman.

The topic dominated social media platforms from the moment people woke up Tuesday.

“Good marriage equality morning!” a New York lawyer who uses “amaeryllis” as her Twitter name greeted her nearly 15,000 followers.

“Please remember to #pray today as #SCOTUS deliberates these very important marriage cases,” read the first Twitter message of the day from the North Carolina Values Coalition.

Holy Covenant United Methodist Church in Chicago, a small congregation where vegetarian dinners for the homeless are a weekly event, organized a virtual vigil. People were encouraged to take a moment at noon Tuesday to pray for “a pivotal opportunity for far-reaching, lasting change for L.G.B.T.Q. people and their partners.”

Late Tuesday afternoon, a knot of mellow demonstrators with signs and rainbow flags ruffling in the warm breeze gathered on the steps of the California state office complex in San Francisco. As sea gulls called overhead, they played a mix of songs with lyrics that included, “Don’t tell me who to kiss.”

“This is our time,” said Breana Hansen, 27, a graduate student in international and multicultural education. “We want to show the Supreme Court all the people who are going to be affected if they uphold Propostion 8. We’re being heard.”

Billy Ray Bradford, who organized the demonstration, said: “Our lives are in the hands of nine people in Washington. They hold our relationships, our families and future. They get to make the call on whether our Constitution means what it says, equal protection under the law.”

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People gathered in front of the Supreme Court early Tuesday.Credit
Mark Wilson/Getty Images

A number of those at the vigil said they were not happy about comments made in court Tuesday by Justice Antonin Scalia, who asked, “When did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage?” Kirk Linn-DeGrassi, a dog walker, answered, “The right for marriage equality became a civil right when we signed the Constitution.”

Events had begun even before the court was seated Tuesday morning. On Monday, 75 opponents of same-sex marriage gathered with candles on the steps of the Sandra Day O’Connor Federal Courthouse in Phoenix. The group said it believed that it prayers could influence the court.

That night, several hundred people crowded together at Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago, wearing parkas and rainbow mufflers to ward off 30-degree temperatures and push for a right to same-sex marriage.

On Sunday night, about 400 people gathered at Los Angeles City Hall for a candlelight vigil in support of same-sex marriage.

The largest of the events were on the Supreme Court steps on Tuesday. The crowd included a home-schooled family from Iowa, a group of Catholic schoolchildren on a field trip and throngs of Pentecostal parishioners crossing paths with a newly engaged lesbian couple from Ohio, a man with H.I.V. and a drag queen.

“It’s a political circus, a wonderful political circus,” said Allen Ritter, 45, who slept outside the court for days so he could get inside to hear the case argued.

Thousands of same-sex marriage opponents marched up the National Mall in a demonstration that resembled a church procession, complete with flowing banners, signs citing Scripture and members of the clergy leading the way.

On the other side of the debate were thousands of gay men and lesbians — some who had married and others who said they wished to someday — and their supporters, who came to witness a moment they said they hoped would become their Brown v. Board of Education.

Just down Capitol Hill, demonstrators who oppose same-sex marriage were making their way up to the Supreme Court as the arguments at the court began. Among them were the Wackers of Garner, Iowa, who used the march, along with trips to tour the Capitol and a few museums, as a civics lesson for their home-schooled children.

“It could be a Roe v. Wade type of decision,” said Cindy Wacker, 40. “I wouldn’t want to look back and say I wish I could have done something. This is something I can do by being here and marching and praying.”

Kim Severson reported from Columbia, and Jeremy W. Peters from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Robbie Brown from Atlanta, Ian Lovett from Los Angeles, Dan Frosch from Denver, Jess Bidgood from Boston, and Malia Wollan and Carol Pogash from San Francisco.

A version of this article appears in print on March 27, 2013, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Oral Arguments Echo in Gatherings Across Nation. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe